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A game with food and nutrition related pictures was developed to provide an opportunity for a classroom teacher to interview preschool children for assessment of nutrition knowledge concepts. Specifically, knowledge of vegetable concepts which included identification of the food, the food group, the source, preparation methods and use by the body was measured. The assessment was administered to five groups of children (ages two and one-half to five years) in preschools and child care centers in Reston, VA by high school early childhood education students. The assessment was designed to meet current criteria that assessment be teacher administered, provide useful information to the teacher, reflect the typical activities of children in the classroom and be one of a variety of assessments used. The assessment was successfully administered by the high school students working as teacher aides. The assessment gave teachers useful information about each class and individual children which could be used in curriculum planning. The assessment fit into the usual classroom activities, in this case, a games and manipulatives learning center. The assessment provided more in-depth information about children's knowledge than multiple choice tests used in previous research on nutrition knowledge, because the teachers recorded children's responses to open-ended questions. Children's responses indicated elementary understanding of food and nutrition concepts suggesting that classroom teachers need to make greater use of the variety of nutrition education materials available. / Master of Science

This study explored informal conversations between parents and me at the Virginia Tech Child Development Lab School during transition times, or arrival and departure of the child. An ethnography was used for this study. I, as the participant observer, recorded the natural interactions and comments between 28 parents and myself during the transition times. I analyzed the data using a coding procedure that uncovered four main themes: (1) Opening Communication, (2) Communication Focused on the Child, (3) Problem-Solving Communication, and (4) Factors that Enhance and Hinder Communication. My findings and reflections revealed the content of transition time communication and how it helped me develop relationships with parents. Implications for parents, teachers, and future researchers are suggested. / Master of Science

As the number of public school students identified as living in poverty increases, so does the number of children entering kindergarten with inadequate pre-literacy skills. This lack of preparation creates a gap in literacy achievement that is persistent and grows throughout a child's K-12 experience. One rural Virginia school division has begun offering a full-day prekindergarten program for the most at-risk three year-old children. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the three year-old preschool program in this one rural school division in eastern Virginia. This study examined the literacy achievement data for the first five cohorts of these students, and determined what difference, if any, exists in achievement as measured by the Virginia Phonemic Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS), the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), Get Ready to Read" Revised (GRTR-R) and teacher-generated student growth assessments. A two-tailed t-test was used to identify potential differences in mean scores on the appropriate achievement measures between those students who received the three year-old preschool intervention and those that did not. For each of the first five cohorts of students, no significant difference was identified in literacy achievement on the four assessments administered where such difference may be assumed to occur, indicating that early intervention may make a difference in closing the literacy achievement gap for students in poverty. / Ed. D.

This thesis is a narrative inquiry of laughter in a University Lab School preschool classroom that describes the many situations in which children laugh as well as laughter's importance for the children, for me, and for all of us as a whole within the context of our classroom. To date, there is a paucity of research on children's laughter, especially in young children. The majority of research that has been conducted has been quantitative in nature, with few attempts to comprehensively describe the many situations in which laughter occurs. For my study, I felt it crucial to look at, document, and describe preschoolers' laughter, taking into consideration the many facets of their school day including free play, story time, playground time, and snack time. My sample included all of my 14 preschoolers, who ranged in age from 3 years to 4 years, 4 months at the outset of the study. I also deemed it important to look at what these laughter-producing situations meant to me and the children in my classroom, including what deeper worth laughter for all of us, how we used it in the classroom, and how it helped me to grow both personally and professionally through my research. / Master of Science

This doctoral project introduces EmpowerED, an innovative professional development (PD) initiative set to revolutionize early childhood education by equipping educators with the tools to boost kindergarten readiness through enhanced teaching practices. Centered in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, EmpowerED integrates key tenets from adult learning theory, social learning theory, and pedagogical principles. Its focus is to develop educators' skills in applying developmentally appropriate practices (DAP), specifically aimed at promoting fine motor skills and multisensory learning experiences. EmpowerED is crafted as a user-friendly online training module, enriched with interactive elements including quizzes, video demonstrations, and case studies, to foster active participant engagement. It delivers a well-structured, evidence-based curriculum that equips educators with the strategies needed to create stimulating learning environments, thus enhancing the academic journey and lifelong success of their students. Central to this project is a robust evaluation research plan designed to assess EmpowerED's impact on refining teaching methods and improving student outcomes. In anticipated partnership with the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), the program aims to significantly influence early childhood education by providing educators with essential skills to meet the varied needs of their students. By offering valuable insights into effective professional development strategies, this doctoral project stands to significantly influence educational practices and policies. It underscores the program's potential for creating a scalable and sustainable enhancement of early learning frameworks, with the ultimate goal of significantly enhancing educational practices and student achievements in early childhood education.

According to the United States Department of Education, approximately 4,172,347 four year olds are eligible to attend publicly funded preschool programs. Of this number, only 1,709,607 of those eligible are enrolled in a publicly funded preschool program (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Because of a lack of quantitative and qualitative data regarding parents' positive and negative attitudes and beliefs about preschool, misconceptions arise regarding parental decisions to support or not to support their child's academic, social and emotional development prior to kindergarten. In a large urban district in the southeastern part of the United States, this qualitative phenomenological study investigated the perceptions of 12 parents, six of whom elected and six of whom did not elect to send their children to preschool, and the lived experiences that contributed to those decisions. Unanswered questions linger about why so few children attend preschool. Further, the study examined the relationship between parent attitudes and beliefs about preschool and whether or not their lived experiences contributed to their perceptions of the values of preschool. The conceptual framework for this study was based on Glasser's (1998) concept of an individual's quality world. Data were collected from initial and follow up interviews. Moustakas' (1994) modified van Kaam (2011) method was used to analyze the data, including listing and preliminary grouping, reduction and elimination, clustering and thematizing, and for a final identification of the invariant constituents and themes. Findings from the study revealed that participants encountered both positive and negative experiences that contributed to their decisions about preschool. Participants also believed that academic readiness skills, social emotional development, and parental involvement were values of preschool. / Ed. D.

The causal effects of the skills of attending and obtaining task-relevant information on the pre-reading ability of one hundred and twenty-three preschool-age Head Start children were studied. Attending and obtaining task-relevant information (OTRI) were conceptualized as latent variables. Performance on a path-referenced test entitled Social Skills in the Classroom (SSITC) provided data which were observable indicators of these latent variables. Pre-reading ability was also conceptualized as a latent variable, with performance on another path-referenced test, the Reading Dimension, providing the observable indicators of this variable. Convariance structure analysis procedures were utilized to (1) link the observable indicators to their respective latent variable, through a confirmatory factor analysis model, and (2) to examine the causal effects of the latent variables on each other. A model representing the hypotheses that age, attending, and OTRI would be causally related to reading ability, that age would be causally related to attending and OTRI, and that no reciprocal relationships between these latent variables would be found was tested. This model provided a good overall fit with the data. T-values obtained under this model, however, suggested that the causal relationship between OTRI and reading ability was not significant. A second model in which this relationship was assumed to be zero was then tested and was found to provide a good overall fit with the data. A difference of chi-square test suggested that this was the preferred model. This model supported the original hypotheses that age and attending were causally related to pre-reading ability, and that age was causally related to attending and obtaining task-relevant information. The significance of the causal relationship between attending and pre-reading ability is discussed in terms of its implications for future research into the effectiveness of instruction in skills similar to those investigated in the present study.